Facebook, Snapchat bellweers for social TV

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Facebook, Snapchat bellwethers for social TV --

Wed, 22 Feb 2017 09:34

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Social TV has had a boost of late, with both Facebook and Snapchat working on creating new ad models and dabbling in original programming.

Facebook recently unveiled a new video app for TV, which allows viewers to watch videos shared by friends, Facebook pages they follow, top live videos from around the world and recommended videos based on user interests. The app will roll out to app stores for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung Smart TV. Other platforms will be added in due course.

The other key improvement was to make vertical videos look better on mobile devices. In 2016 it began testing a larger preview of vertical videos in its news feed on mobile and, as a result of what it said was positive feedback, the larger format is now available to everyone watching videos on iOS and Android. User feedback has also led to Facebook to deliver video with sound when the volume on users devices was turned on.

Seeing video as a key to its future success, boosting video engagement will continue to be a driver for Facebook s growth. Strategy Analytics AppOptix data shows that average video use on Facebook has nearly doubled from 25 minutes per day to just under 50 minutes since it introduced autoplay in 2013, while average data consumption has grown 10X to 96MB per user per day.

The more time users spend engaged on Facebook the more valuable advertisers perceive it to be, said Strategy Analytics analyst Nitesh Patel in a blog. Facebook also allows advertisers and brands to deliver video ads into newsfeeds to targeted audience segments, which will now also be available via the Facebook TV app, creating additional revenue opportunities.

This is particularly interesting given that the company has indicated aspirations towards premium content, which would boost the opportunity for advertising even further. During its fourth-quarter 2016 earnings call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg discussed the premium video opportunity: [Beyond user-generated and promotional content], theres also a whole class of premium content that the creators need to get paid a good amount in order to support the creation of that content and we need to be able to support that with a business model which were working on through ads to fund that... Over the longer term, I think as that works people will experiment with longer form of video as well and all kinds of different things.

And indeed, the TV app provides a platform for Facebook to offer longer form video content to users.

Facebook has bid for rights to stream Thursday night NFL matches, eventually losing to Twitter, Patel said. While I expect Facebook to be focused on an ad-supported video business model to fit its current competency, with the scale of its user base it could in future offer a subscription-based movie and TV show service to compete with Netflix or Hulu.

As for Snapchat, it is already partnering with Disney-ABC Television Group on a slate of original programming, including an offshoot of ABC s long-running reality show The Bachelor. The episodic series, dubbed Watch Party: The Bachelor, is broadcast via its own Snapchat Discover channel.

That experiment has paved the way for more content: Discovery Communications, meanwhile, has announced plans to develop video series for its channel on the Snapchat social media platform.

The shows will be premium short-form mobile video produced exclusively for Snapchat, and some will be inspired by some of Discovery s most popular properties, such as Shark Week and Mythbusters. The shows are expected to debut for Snapchatters in the US in the coming months.

Here, too, advertising is a key goal for the effort. The two companies also will collaborate to bring solutions to sponsors leveraging Snap s advertising technology and formats and Discovery s stable of advertisers.

Discovery are world-class storytellers who have turned unlikely subjects into cultural phenomena, said Nick Bell, vice president of content, Snap. We have seen what they can do when developing and producing creative concepts for TV and we re excited to see what s in store as they apply their talent and expertise to this new medium.

Source: Rapid TV News

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